I agree with what you there. The problem is, “desire” is not very much different from “preference”, and I think that those thingies are inextricably bound up in emotions. If you purge emotions, I think your desires would go away too, which would probably make you indistinguishable from a computer in standby mode.
There’s a couple bits of that description that I find interesting, in this context:
The clinical features most commonly associated with aboulia are:[5] …
Reduced emotional responsiveness and spontaneity
As opposed to ‘lack of emotional responsiveness’ or ‘lack of emotions’ - in other words, I suspect that the people in question are experiencing emotions, but don’t feel any drive to communicate that fact.
Most experts agreed that aboulia is clinically distinct from depression, akinetic mutism, and alexithymia.
This is less clear, but again it reads to me as saying that aboulia is not related to a lack of emotions or emotional awareness. I also note that anhedonia isn’t mentioned at all in relation to it.
Minds, as we know them, are engines of optimization. They try to twist reality into a shape that we want. Imagine trying to program a computer without having a goal for the program. I think you’re going to run into some challenges.
We’re not in disagreement about that. But your assumption that emotions are necessary for goals to be formed is still an untested one.
There’s a relevant factoid that’s come up here on LW a few times before: Apparently, people with significant brain damage to their emotional centers are unable to make choices between functionally near-identical things, such as different kinds of breakfast cereal. But, interestingly, they get stuck when trying to make those choices—implying that they do attempt to e.g. acquire cereal in the first place; they’re not just lying in a bed somewhere staring at the ceiling, and they don’t immediately give up the quest to acquire food as unimportant when they encounter a problem.
It would be interesting to know the events that lead up to the presented situation; it would be interesting to know whether people with that kind of brain damage initiate grocery-shopping trips, for example. But even if they don’t—even if the grocery trip is the result of being presented with a fairly specific list, and they do otherwise basically sit around—it seems to at least partially disprove your ‘standby mode’ theory, which would seem to predict that they’d just sit around even when presented with a grocery list and a request to get some shopping done.
but isn’t being presented with a to-do list or alternatively feeling hungry then finding food different than ‘forming goals’?
to be more precise, maybe the ‘survival instinct’ that leads them to seek food is not located in their emotional centers so some goals might survive regardless. but yes, the assumption is untested AFAIK.
but isn’t being presented with a to-do list or alternatively feeling hungry then finding food different than ‘forming goals’?
I don’t think so, but that sounds like a question of semantics to me. If you want to use a definition of ‘form goals’ that doesn’t include ‘acquire food when hungry’, it’s up to you to draw a coherent dividing line for it, and then we can figure out if it’s relevant here.
I agree with what you there. The problem is, “desire” is not very much different from “preference”, and I think that those thingies are inextricably bound up in emotions. If you purge emotions, I think your desires would go away too, which would probably make you indistinguishable from a computer in standby mode.
This sounds like a theory that could use testing.
I think it has, in effect, with aboulia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboulia
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them...”
There’s a couple bits of that description that I find interesting, in this context:
As opposed to ‘lack of emotional responsiveness’ or ‘lack of emotions’ - in other words, I suspect that the people in question are experiencing emotions, but don’t feel any drive to communicate that fact.
This is less clear, but again it reads to me as saying that aboulia is not related to a lack of emotions or emotional awareness. I also note that anhedonia isn’t mentioned at all in relation to it.
Minds, as we know them, are engines of optimization. They try to twist reality into a shape that we want. Imagine trying to program a computer without having a goal for the program. I think you’re going to run into some challenges.
We’re not in disagreement about that. But your assumption that emotions are necessary for goals to be formed is still an untested one.
There’s a relevant factoid that’s come up here on LW a few times before: Apparently, people with significant brain damage to their emotional centers are unable to make choices between functionally near-identical things, such as different kinds of breakfast cereal. But, interestingly, they get stuck when trying to make those choices—implying that they do attempt to e.g. acquire cereal in the first place; they’re not just lying in a bed somewhere staring at the ceiling, and they don’t immediately give up the quest to acquire food as unimportant when they encounter a problem.
It would be interesting to know the events that lead up to the presented situation; it would be interesting to know whether people with that kind of brain damage initiate grocery-shopping trips, for example. But even if they don’t—even if the grocery trip is the result of being presented with a fairly specific list, and they do otherwise basically sit around—it seems to at least partially disprove your ‘standby mode’ theory, which would seem to predict that they’d just sit around even when presented with a grocery list and a request to get some shopping done.
but isn’t being presented with a to-do list or alternatively feeling hungry then finding food different than ‘forming goals’?
to be more precise, maybe the ‘survival instinct’ that leads them to seek food is not located in their emotional centers so some goals might survive regardless. but yes, the assumption is untested AFAIK.
I don’t think so, but that sounds like a question of semantics to me. If you want to use a definition of ‘form goals’ that doesn’t include ‘acquire food when hungry’, it’s up to you to draw a coherent dividing line for it, and then we can figure out if it’s relevant here.